April 15, 1874.] -*-^ ^ [Chase. 



Mercury to the Sun,* and their geocentric motions, as well as the 

 terrestrial value of gt', (t' being the time of orbital revolution), are in 

 simple relationships to the velocity of light.f The determining point for 

 Saturn is in the orbit of Mars ; that for Mars, near Earth's perihelion. 



My discussions of explosive oscillationg have indicated a probable de- 

 pendence of the chemical laws of combination and dissociation, upon the 

 same forces which have determined planetary mass, motion, and arrange- 

 ment. They may, therefore, help toward the further extension of 

 the study of universal evolution. 



The almost inconceivably minute portion of the mean light-wave velo- 

 city ( ii57( io'ii5' Thesis 14 j which suffices to explain all the gravitating 



motions of our system, seems to confirm the theory of M. Lecoq de 

 Boisbaudran, who attributed weight to the longitudinal vibrations of the 

 aBther. The views of Cauchy and Moigno, who find in those vibrations 

 the origin of heat, point to a still more complete identification of ther- 

 modynamic and cosmical laws, while the enormous excess of apparently 

 unused velocity, may account for Laplace's conclusion that the propaga- 

 tion of attractive force is at least six or eight million times as rapid as 

 that of light. 



I am indebted to Abbe Moigno for a copy of Father Leray's "Con- 

 stitution de la Matiere et Ses Mouvements," with a valuable historical 

 Preface by the Abbe himself. This very interesting essay, like the some- 

 what earlier dynamic discussions of Challis and Norton,:!: demonstrates 

 the plausibility and the adequacy of Newton's sethereal hypothesis. I 

 hope that the accordance of that hypothesis with the facts of Nature, 

 which I have pointed out, and the simple mathematical basis upon which 

 I have rested that accordance, may lead other competent analysts to labor 

 in the same field. 



Even while ending this note, I find some new and interesting correla- 

 tions of mass, density, time, and harmonic undulation, which may prove 

 to be important. If we call the distance, at which a satellite would re- 

 volve about a planet in the time of the planet's orbital revolution, the 

 isochronal radius, we have : 



1. The mass of the Sun, is to the mass of any planet, as the cube of the 

 planet's radius vector, is to the cube of its isochronal radius. 



2. The perihelion radius vector of Jupiter, is nearly equivalent to r^ 

 times its isochronal radius. 



3. Jupiter's radius, is to its isochronal radius, as its mass, is to Sun's 

 mass. 



4. Earth's isochronal radius is a mean proportional between its own 

 radius and Jupiter's perihelion radius vector. 



* xii. 398, (1), 409 ; xiii. 246-7. 

 t xii. 392-417, &c. 

 X xiii. 246. 



A. P. S.— TOL. XIV. tJ 



